Corps uncertain about condition of nation's thousands of private levees

ST. LOUIS -- Across America, earthen flood levees protect big cities and small towns, wealthy suburbs and rich farmland.

And while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recently completed an inventory of levees it maintains or helps fund, it has no such inventory of the nation's thousands of private levees -- no idea how many there are, where they sit, what they protect or how sturdy they are. Congress has authorized an inventory of private levees, but so far hasn't provided any money for the project.

"We have to get our arms around this issue and understand how many levees there are in the country, who's watching over them, what populations and properties are behind them," said Eric Halpin, the corps' special assistant for dam and levee safety. "What is the risk posed to the public?"

Critics are troubled that the government lacks those answers.

Many levees are old, with rusting infrastructure and built to protect against relatively common floods -- not the big ones like the Great Flood of 1993, when 1,100 levees were broken or overtopped.

"Once they do get an inventory," said Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley levee expert, "I think we're not going to like what we find."

'Farm' levees

Residents along the Mississippi River have been fighting floods with levees since the 19th century. After a devastating 1927 flood, Congress got involved, approving construction of levees and reservoirs along the Mississippi and Missouri river basins.

Today, about 2,000 levees are either operated by the corps or by local entities in partnership with the corps.

Thousands of others -- no one is sure how many -- are privately owned, operated and maintained. The majority of those are "farm" levees keeping water out of fields, but some protect populated areas, industry and business.

In 2006, prompted in part by devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, Congress provided funding for the corps to inventory the levees it maintains or helps fund. Halpin said that initial inventory is complete.

But a vast number of private levees remain to be accounted for, some with little or no governmental oversight.

Last year, Congress passed the National Levee Safety Act, which for the first time directed the corps to inventory all private levees. But so far, Congress hasn't provided funding and won't likely do so until 2009 at the earliest, experts said.

Repairs overdue

Still, the project is long overdue, said Susan Gilson, executive director of the Washington-based National Association of Flood & Stormwater Management Agencies.

"No. 1, we have to identify all the levees," Gilson said. "We need to identify where there are problems with the levees. Then the next stage will be repairs."

Plenty of problems have been found with even the corps' levees.

In Missouri and Illinois, nine levees that are supposed to protect against a 500-year flood fall short of even 100-year protection, said Col. Lewis Setliff III, commander of the corps district in St. Louis. Just getting those levees up to standard would cost an estimated $200 million.

Flooding in March killed nearly two dozen people and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes across a swath of Midwestern states. With ground saturated and rivers still running high, some worry that more flooding is on the way.

Just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis is the Wood River levee in Illinois, which protects a ConocoPhillips refinery. Flooding there could spell an environmental and economic disaster.

Water seeped through the levee in 1993, but it held. Levee district commissioner Leroy Emerick worries that the next big test might not go as well.

Flooding in March nearly wiped out tiny Dutchtown, a community of 99 residents in Southeast Missouri. Several waterways -- the Castor and Whitewater rivers and Hubble Creek -- flow into the Diversion Channel. Torrential rain caused a quick rise in water that tore through a small, private levee.

Weeks after the flood, residents are still ripping out flood-soaked carpet and ruined furniture, cleaning debris from their yards and power-washing away caked mud from cars and siding.

"It was so much water at one time, and the levee couldn't handle it," said resident Robert Reed, 72.

Halpin knows another major flood would be more than many levees could handle.

"It's not a question of if it will happen. It's a question of when and where it will happen," he said. "There are a lot of vulnerable spots in this country."